Book Image

Instant EdgeSight for XenApp

By : Vaqar Hasan
Book Image

Instant EdgeSight for XenApp

By: Vaqar Hasan

Overview of this book

EdgeSight 5.4 is the most comprehensive performance management and reporting solution for the Citrix XenApp infrastructure. Administrators have real-time visibility of session-level performance and visibility of key metrics such as profile load time, login script execution, and so on. It also contains several tools to monitor the XenApp servers and can alert the administrator when the specified alert conditions are met. This book will help you to become proficient in monitoring and generating reports for your Citrix XenApp servers. You will start by setting up the environment for EdgeSight. The book will then go on to discuss the installation, configuration, and troubleshooting of the EdgeSight server. Instant EdgeSight for XenApp contains clear and step-by-step exercises which will help you learn how to use EdgeSight quickly and painlessly. You will install EdgeSight and its agents and learn how to configure server settings, user groups and authentication, and alerts. You will also learn how to manage the real-time dashboard and reports, monitor Citrix license usage and reports, and troubleshoot common issues. This book starts with the basics of introducing the EdgeSight component into your infrastructure before moving on to more advanced topics such as troubleshooting. Readers will learn how to use the EdgeSight tools for day-to-day administration tasks as well as how to efficiently monitor the XenApp servers to achieve best performance for their end users.
Table of Contents (7 chapters)

Installing EdgeSight agents (Simple)


The EdgeSight agent needs to be installed on each XenApp server that we need to monitor. After the agent has been installed, the agent attempts to contact the EdgeSight Server to download its configuration. The installation of the agent requires a reboot of the server and may take up to 10 minutes before the XenApp server appears in the EdgeSight Console.

Getting ready

If you have to use a proxy server, remember that, for the communication to happen between the EdgeSight agent and the server, you must configure a proxy to route the EdgeSight traffic to the EdgeSight Server. You can do this by reconfiguring the EdgeSight agent network settings of the Citrix System Monitoring Agent with these new proxy values.

The following screenshot shows the EdgeSight agent settings screen where you need to provide the proxy settings:

You must also configure antivirus software running on your EdgeSight Server and all XenApp servers with EdgeSight agent to exclude specific processes and files.

Antivirus exclusions

Ensure that these agent services are not subject to script blocking on both the EdgeSight Server and the XenApp server.

EdgeSight Server

XenApp Server

RSshApp.exe

RScorsvc.exe

RSshSvc.exe

 

These files are located in the following folders:

  • The RSshApp.exe and RSshSvc.exe files are located at %CommonProgramFiles%\Citrix\System Monitoring\Server\RSSH\

  • The RScorsvc.exe file is located at %ProgramFiles%\Citrix\System Monitoring\Agent\Core\

Also exclude the following folders from script blocking:

EdgeSight Server

XenApp Server

%ProgramFiles%\Citrix\System Monitoring\Server

%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Citrix\System Monitoring\Data

%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\Data\

 

%SystemRoot%\SYSTEM32\Logfiles

 

For XenApp servers with Windows Server 2003 the %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Citrix\System Monitoring\Data folder can be found at %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\Citrix\System Monitoring\Data\

How to do it...

  1. The EdgeSight agent can be installed during the XenApp installation or after the XenApp installation. If you want to install the EdgeSight agent with the installation of the XenApp server, during the installation of the XenApp server, when selecting the roles to be installed, make sure you select the EdgeSight Agent option:

  2. The EdgeSight agent can also be installed after the installation of XenApp or on an existing XenApp server. The XenApp 6.5 CD image contains two agent installer files, as shown in the following screenshot:

    The EdgeSightXA6Agentx64.msi installer file is used to install EdgeSight agent Version 5.4, while EdgeSightXAAgentx64.msi is used to install EdgeSight agent Version 5.3.

    The installation of the agent is straightforward; the only thing one should keep in mind is that the company name should match the name specified during the EdgeSight Server setup.

  3. The agent can also be installed via the command-line interface. A typical command line to install the agent would be:

    Msiexec /i EdgeSightXA6Agentx64.msi /l logfile.log /q SERVER_NAME=ServerName COMPANY=CompanyName DEPARTMENT=DeptName REBOOT=ReallySuppress
    

How it works...

The agent runs as a service and collects the data from a number of sources including Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) and Windows Performance Counters.

The XenApp agent collects performance data every 15 seconds and periodically consolidates this data into five-minute samples. The data uploaded to the EdgeSight Server is consolidated into an hourly granularity. By default, this data is uploaded to the EdgeSight Server once a day.

There's more...

If you ever need to modify the agent configuration after installation, you can use the Citrix System Monitoring Agent control panel applet on the XenApp server.

The EdgeSight agent operates in either the basic mode or the advanced mode. The agents in advanced mode collect more detailed metrics. For more details on the differences, refer to the Citrix Document ID CTX124427 documentation at http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX124427.

XenApp Edition

Default Agent Mode

Mode Tab Availability

Platinum

Advanced

No

Enterprise

Basic

Yes

To configure the agent mode when installing the agent using the command line, add the FUNCTIONALITY_MODE argument. It can have two values Advanced and Basic.